NEW YORK — Following President Donald Trump’s equating Nazi sympathizers and white supremacists with those who protested their armed presence Saturday in Charlottesville, Virginia — where 20-year-old James Alex Fields, Jr. has been charged with second-degree murder after allegedly ramming his car into a crowd protesting the White supremacists, killing 32-year-old paralegal and activist Heather Heyer and wounding 19 others — dance legend Carmen de Lavallade said Thursday she will not be attending the White House reception following her receiving the Kennedy Center Honors Award next December.

“I am truly honored to receive the Kennedy Center Honors Award and look forward to attending the ceremony at the Kennedy Center,” de Lavallade announced. “In light of the socially divisive and morally caustic narrative that our existing leadership is choosing to engage in, and in keeping with the principles that I and so many others have fought for, I will be declining the invitation to attend the reception at the White House.”

On Tuesday, the president told reporters outside Trump Tower, revising an earlier statement about Saturday’s attack in which he condemned White supremacists including the Ku Klux Klan, “I think there is blame on both sides” who took part in the demonstrations. “You had a group on one side that was bad. You had a group on the other side that was also very violent. Nobody wants to say that. I’ll say it right now.” Yesterday, referring to the city of Charlottesville’s decision to remove a statue of Confederate general Robert E. Lee which was the pretext for the extremists’ descending on the Virginia city, Trump added, “Sad to see the history and culture of our great country being ripped apart with the removal of our beautiful statues and monuments.”

In addition to Ms. Heyer, two state troopers were also killed when their helicopter crashed while they were en route to the demonstration.